The Owls fell to Mercer 3-1 on Tuesday night in a closely contested Griffin’s Game battle at the Convocation Center.
After losing the first two sets, the Owls rallied to pull out a third set victory before dropping the fourth and final set of the game.
The Owls were led by junior outside hitter Manu Johnsen who had a game-leading 18 kills, with redshirt sophomore middle blocker Olivia Burrage also reaching double-digit kills for the Owls with 12.
Sophomore middle blocker Maggie Byrd led both teams with 10 blocks, the only player to reach the double-figures. Defensive specialists senior Caroline Cole and junior Leah Freeman led the Owls with thirteen and eleven digs, respectively.
Redshirt sophomore Kourtney Brown led the team in with three aces and tied freshman setter Kaely Walz with 21 assists for a team-high.
However, despite the loss, this match proved to be about more than just the results on the court.
This match commemorated the ninth-annual Griffin’s Game, a game held to raise money for children diagnosed with various forms of childhood cancer. The tradition was started in 2015 after coach Keith Schunzel and his wife volunteer assistant coach Briana Schunzel’s son Griffin was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In response to their community’s outpouring of support, the Schunzels created Griffin’s Game to help support other families affected by childhood cancer diagnoses.
The tradition has carried on to this day, helping a different local family each year. This year’s Griffin’s game is raising money for 6-year-old King Senat, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in earlier this year. Proceeds raised from the game’s ticket sales and sale of Griffin’s Game t-shirts sold at the game will be given to the Senat family as King continues his brave fight against cancer.
“This is not life or death,” Schunzel said. “The stress that King is under right now, his mom is under is way more than what any of us are going through. We’re trying to help people in our community and trying to do something a little bigger than ourselves. To me, that’s the message of this game.”
The Owls will look to their Sept. 27. match against New Mexico State for their first home win of the season, in their first conference matchup as a member of Conference USA.
“Right now is just finding consistent mentality, consistent confidence,” Schunzel said. “Some points of matches, we have all the confidence in the world and then a couple of things go poorly and all of a sudden, we have people questioning themselves – this team has got a lot of potential, we are going to keep growing.”
The Owls find themselves with a 2-5 record on the season, as they head off on the road to Troy, Alabama for the Troy Invitational. They will play The Citadel on Sept. 13. and Troy on Sept. 14.
